


Free To Be

by bluflamingo



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-30 01:09:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16754950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluflamingo/pseuds/bluflamingo
Summary: Two couples head to Worlds; when they come home, they take steps towards being something more.





	Free To Be

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pinkerton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pinkerton/gifts).



It starts at Worlds, the year after Jack wins the Cup and comes out on national TV. The Aces didn't make the play-offs, and the Falconers went out in Round One against the Bruins; instead of playing for the Cup with Jeff, Kent's captaining the US team, and Jeff and Jack are playing together for Canada. 

"For real, though – you invited my ex-boyfriend and his new boyfriend to have dinner with us?"

Kent and Jack aren't exactly friends again – they've texted, since Jack came out, and Kent and Bitty follow each other on Twitter without actually ever speaking to each other, but the handful of times they've been face-to-face, it's been awkwardly cordial at best.

"They've been together two years, is he really still a new boyfriend?"

Canada's got two games left to go, and the US one before they fly to Paris for the playoffs; Jeff and Kent have been talking pretty much every day, but it's still weird to be in Europe in different countries. Kent's got Jeff on speakerphone while he fixes his tie for a press event in half an hour, his roommate having well-learned to be out of the room when Kent and Jeff talk.

"Not really the key point there," he says.

Jeff shuffles around on the other end of the phone. "It can't be easy for him here," he says, which is probably true – Mashkov's the only other Falconer at Worlds, and Russia, like the US, are playing their preliminary rounds in Copenhagen. "He could use more friends here, and you said you want to be friends again."

Kent does want to be friends with Jack again, something that finally started seeming possible when he and Jeff got kind of serious about each other. He's just not sure a competition where he and Jack are competing against each other is the best place to try. "I don't know."

"It's dinner," Jeff says. "I don't know Eric, really, but he seems cool, and Jack and I are team-mates right now."

"And?" Kent prompts – he's known Jeff since he first joined the Aces, and he knows when there's something else coming. 

"I like him," he says, softly enough that Kent doesn't immediately freak out. "He's a history nerd, and he's really awkward, but he was really brave to come out like that."

"I don't…" Except Kent really has no idea whether or not Jack would be up for that. He and Kent were exclusive as kids, but he and Jeff, now that it's at least a little safer, have taken other guys home with them before. "What about Eric?"

"It's just dinner," Jeff says again. "I'm not proposing anything, I just –"

"Like him," Kent echoes. It's easier, somehow, to think of it as dinner with a guy that Jeff's interested in, a queer hockey player to be friends with, than to think of it as dinner with Jack and the boyfriend Kent doesn't really know but suspects doesn't like him. "Yeah, okay," he says. 

Even without being able to see his face, Kent knows Jeff's smiling.

*

Everyone knows Jack has a type, although he'd deny it. The truth is that Kent does too, and it's tall, brunette history nerds who are good at hockey.

He's not, therefore, particularly surprised that Jack and Jeff get along like a house on fire, geeking out over some history of women's hockey that's just been released. The problem is, that leaves Kent staring at Eric across their wine glasses, and he's pretty sure Eric still thinks he's the bad guy.

"Hi?" he offers.

Eric watches him for a long moment, then, right before Kent gives in to the urge to squirm, says, "Britney or Beyoncé?"

"Um," Kent says intelligently. He can feel Jack and Jeff both shifting part of their attention to him and Eric. Jeff's probably just doing it because he can tell Kent's tense, but he and Jack haven't been able to read each other that well in a long time. So, whatever Kent says in response if probably important. "Like, who'd win at Monopoly?" he asks, trying for a charming grin.

He's not expecting it to work, but something in Eric's face shifts, his mouth quirking into a reluctant smile. "Clearly Beyoncé," he says. "She has her own business."

"Britney has children."

"Beyoncé has three children."

"Beyoncé's children are too young for Monopoly, it's for ages eight and up," Kent says, fake horrified.

Eric rolls his eyes with a smile, but Jeff slings an arm around Kent for a quick hug. "I can't believe you call me the nerd."

"Name the best known Canadian fighter pilot in World War Two," Kent says, and, when Jack and Jeff chorus the same answer, just raises an eyebrow: my point, it is made.

*

Team USA flames out spectacularly against Finland, but Canada make the semi-finals, and Kent ends up sticking around to watch them play Russia. Somehow, he's not as surprised as he should be to find Eric in the stands next to him.

"Aren't you graduating this year?" Kent asks, tweaking Eric's Team Canada cap. 

Eric gives him a look that mostly just reminds Kent that everything he knows about college comes from movies. "At the end of the month." 

"Good timing," Kent says, instead of asking whether he'd still be here if it would mean missing the ceremony. After an evening of watching him and Jack together, even in public, he's pretty sure he already knows the answer. On the ice, Jack and Jeff are talking together at the boards, and the reality is, even when they all go home, he doesn't think Eric's going to disappear from his life. He's not even sure he'd want that, if it was an option.

Which means that he's going to have to put in some effort. "I know there's not much time between games," he says, quiet enough that the partners and NHL-teammates filling up their corner of the stands won't overhear, "But we should get a drink later."

"Jack hasn't been going out after games," Eric says, just as quiet, like Kent doesn't know him more than well enough to have guessed that.

"I meant you and me." Eric just looks at him, and, okay, apparently they're going to have the awkward exes conversation in a hockey arena. Kent's really glad that, two NHL-players and a couple in the AHL having come out since Jack did, the intensity around queer men's hockey players has died down a little. "I know we don't really know each other, and it's awkward, but – I don't know, maybe you still hate me, or you don't hate me but you don't want to be friends, but…" He tips his head at Jack and Jeff, who've gone back to warming up, hoping he doesn't need to say it.

For a long moment, Eric just looks at him. He might be even slighter than Kent, but he's got a goalie-level stare. "All right," he says eventually. 

In between periods, they talk more than they managed at dinner – Kent shows off his latest pictures of Kit being cute, and the publicity shots from the cat café in Vegas he sponsors; Eric tells him about the work he's doing with You Can Play and the NCAA, and the Southern cookbook he's pitching to a publisher. 

They cheer like crazy when Jack gets an assist on MacKinnon's equalizer, and again when O'Reilly scores two minutes later. By the end of the game, Canada's secured a slot in the gold medal game, and Kent thinks that he and Eric actually have something that could turn into a friendship.

*

And then, because Kent's never once been to Worlds and had it work out like he wanted, Canada loses out on gold to Sweden. Jeff's been doing this long enough that he's unhappy about it but not upset, which isn't a point Kent thinks Jack will ever get to, and certainly hasn't gotten to yet, and that translates into Jack and Eric being on the Team Canada flight home, and Jeff and Kent heading in the other direction for a few days drinking wine and swimming in the sea in Tuscany.

They don't talk to Jack and Eric, but Jack likes one of Kent's Instagram pictures of the sunset, and Eric tweets Jeff a recipe for the cheesecake they had when they went out for dinner, and it's not a lot, but it's something.

*

And then, because apparently the NHL gods hate them and want them to suffer, the pre-season roster gets announced, and Vegas are playing Providence.

"If you want to blame anyone," Jeff says when Kent takes a breath in his rant about having to fly six hours for a _pre-season game_ , "Blame Quebec City."

"I do." Kent throws himself onto the bed next to Jeff, and does his best not to feel better when Jeff immediately hugs him close. Sure, Quebec City is a great place, and their brand new team are called the lynx and have a really cute mascot, but they're also, _apparently_ , the reason that the Aces are playing the Falconers and did he mention flying six hours each way to do it? In the pre-season?

"And we'll get to see Jack and Eric." Jeff presses a kiss to the top of Kent's head, like he knows that'll genuinely make Kent feel better.

"I'm still sulking," Kent says, but he tips his face up for Jeff's next kiss, and knows neither one of them believes him.

*

And then, because fuck the universe, that's why, Kent's skating with the newest intake of Young Aces when one of them loses their balance, slides into Kent's skate from behind, and knocks both of them over. Kent, distracted by a five year old girl telling him she wants to be Julie Chu when she grows up, and not expecting to be tackled from behind, does a really bad job of falling, and slams feet first into the boards. 

The kid, freaked out by causing an accident, cries so hard he has to be taken off the ice and given to his dads, but is actually fine. Kent, because he doesn't want to freak out any more small children, grins through the pain as he's helped off the ice, and isn't at all surprised when the trainers send him to hospital with a broken ankle.

"Why were you even going fast enough to break it?" Jeff asks when he picks Kent up from the hospital. "It's Baby Aces skate, half of them can barely stand up."

Kent gestures to his ankle, and the cast he's going to be wearing for another six weeks. "I am living proof that they can't stand up," he says, since he's not any more sure how he managed to hit the boards hard enough to break a bone. He really wasn't going that fast. "Can you chirp me about this while we're driving home, or do I have to wait for you to be done to get out of here?"

Jeff knows as well as they all do that there's a limit to how long one of them can be at a hospital without the sports media descending; either that, or he takes pity on the sad face Kent's making at him. Whichever it is, they're back at Kent's place within the hour, Kent reading through the stream of messages on his phone while Jeff makes tea.

"Don't make that face, I put extra sugar in yours," Jeff says when he comes into the living room with two steaming mugs.

"I'm sure it'll be delicious," Kent lies. "But Coach Travers texted, he wants me to stay here for the Falcs game."

Jeff hands over a mug of tea and takes the armchair, since Kent's spread out on most of the couch. "You didn’t want to do the flight anyway. And it's in, what, three days? You'll still be on heavy duty painkillers, there's no way you want to put yourself through that."

"I know," Kent says, fidgeting and spilling tea over his hand. "But –" It's not like they'd made plans or anything, but he was looking forward to seeing Jack and Eric. Maybe they could've gotten dinner, the four of them and maybe… Well, maybe when the Falconers came to Vegas a week later, Eric could've come too, and they could've maybe gotten together for something other than dinner.

Jeff makes a little humming noise. "In which case, this might not be the best moment to tell you, but Eric texted to ask if you're okay, and if we wanted to get a drink with him and Jack after the game."

"What'd you tell him?" Kent knows Jeff's right, that he doesn't want to make the trip injured and on painkillers, that the pressure changes of flying always make his broken bones feel like they're on fire. It just doesn't make him feel any better.

"I told him you're broken and you won't be coming, and that I'd talk to you and let him know." Jeff sips at his tea like it doesn't taste of straw, his eyes soft over the rim of the mug.

"You should go," Kent says, because he's not a total asshole, and Jeff really likes Jack, even if nothing else ever happens. "Just – don't sleep with them without me."

Kent says it to his tea, overly conscious of how it's really a request but it sounds like an order, even though Jeff knows that, Jeff suggested that way back when they were still friends who sometimes hooked up, and Kent slept on the bare spare bed because he didn't know how to ask Jeff for sheets. Jeff found out, and clearly thought Kent was completely mad, kept asking why he didn't just ask where the sheets were until Kent, cold and tired and frustrated at his own inability to explain something he knew was stupid, started crying. 

"Hey." Jeff's crouched by the side of the couch, and reaches over for an awkward hug when Kent doesn't look at him. "I won't, because you're asking me not to, but also I won't because I don't want to without you." He kisses Kent, soft and intent, and then kisses his nose because it always makes Kent laugh. "I'm with you first. That's never going to change."

*

Kent watches the game – the Falconers win it, 3-2, which is probably for the best even though it's just the pre-season – so he knows roughly when Jeff's going to be meeting up with Jack and Eric. He's not expecting a Skype call to come through ten minutes after he texts Jeff to say hi to Jack and Eric for him, and he's really not expecting the call to be from Jack, who he didn't think even had Kent's Skype handle.

He's halfway through asking what's wrong, like anything could have really happened to Jeff in the last ten minutes, when the picture resolves into the three of them, heads pressed together to fit onto the screen, Eric definitely sitting in Jack's lap.

"Hi, Kent," Jeff says, smiling all warm and soft and proud of himself for what must have been his idea.

Kent smiles back, and waves, because he just took another painkiller, so he's definitely allowed to be a bit of a dork. "Did you miss me?"

"Yes," Jack says, too serious even though he's still smiling. He blinks, clearly surprised with himself for saying it, and Kent has nothing, because he used to want, desperately, for Jack to say that, and he hadn't entirely realized that he stopped wanting it, stopped needing to hear it.

"Well, of course," Kent says, as eager as Jack looks to move on, "It's not really a party until I'm there."

"You'd be here if you hadn't been taken out by a small child," Jeff says, because the Aces are probably never going to let that one go.

"I injured myself trying to avoid injuring any helpless children," Kent says, mock-offended. Jeff just rolls his eyes, but it makes Jack smile and Eric laugh. "See what I have to put up with, Eric?"

"Poor baby," Eric says with absolutely no sympathy whatsoever. 

"You're all so mean to me," Kent says, watching how happy Eric looks, how soft Jeff's eyes are, how Jack's sort of smiling as he looks at Kent, and not meaning his words at all.

"You won't think that when Jeff gets home," Jack says. "Bitty's sending a present."

Eric, before Kent can make an off-color comment about _that_ , says, "Jeff told me you like strawberry pie."

"I'm getting Bitty pie? Never mind, I take back everything I just said." Kent's seen pictures, okay, and if they taste half as good as they look… "If you eat it on the plane, you're sleeping on the couch."

"If we're doing threats, I'm not going to tell you about the rest of your present," Jeff says. It makes Jack look down, and Eric blush, and so Kent's expecting something pretty good when Jeff adds, "Eric's flying out to Vegas when we play the Falcs again."

"Really?" Kent doesn't want to ask what that means – there's been some implying, but no-one's said anything explicitly about where things are headed, and he's learned that it's better not to assume.

"Really," Jack says. He's still not making eye-contact, but he's at least looking in Kent's general direction. "I've got permission to stay an extra day after the team flies home. Jeff invited us for dinner, um, at yours."

Kent looks at Jeff, and he looks really happy. "And we figured it would be easier for them to just stay over."

"Easier, huh?" In the tiny picture of his own face, Kent can see that he's blushing too, and smiling like a fool. "Just because it's easier?"

Eric, still blushing, meets Kent's eyes. "Easier than sneaking two local hockey stars into our hotel room, yeah."

Jeff laughs softly, and for a long moment, they just look at each other, Kent letting the reality of it sink into him, warm and comforting and exciting. In the background, a timer sounds, and Eric leaps to his feet. "Dinner, I forgot!"

Kent maybe forgot that the three of them have plans without him, and it punctures his happy bubble just a bit. "You should go – I get the feeling Eric doesn't really stand for people being late to dinner."

"Yeah, that's not happening," Jeff says. Jack reaches towards the screen, and everything tips wildly for a moment. When it settles, Kent's looking at three place settings, two occupied by Jack and Jeff. "You've got something you can eat, right? You're coming to dinner too."

It's an incredibly sweet gesture, silly and charming and fun. "No-one's allowed to judge my meal choices," Kent tells them, reaching for his crutches. "We can't all have someone cooking for us."

He ends up eating chicken and pasta from the meal service while the other three eat something that looks infinitely more enticing and they won't tell him the name of. It's not the same as being with them, but Kent reminds himself that, in a few days, they'll all be here, and that, even though they're not right now, he's still with them.

It's a really good thought.


End file.
